Curse of the compass
by Lux Veritatis
Summary: A day in the life of Kurtis Trent
1. Prologue

_**Declaimer: I do not own Tomb Raider or the characters in the game. Only those Characters that are not in the game is my made up characters.**_

This story takes place after AOD.

I am not English, it's not my main Language and I apologize for any bad spelling...

Have fun reading the story and I love to here what you think of it so far...

* * *

A day in the life of Kurtis Trent:

_Run from his destiny_

_Train Lux Veritatis_

_Avoid Council_

_Dodge Demons_

_A mysterious love_

It's still damn inconvenient though – especially when seductive distractions are thrown into the mix. But is walking away really an option? And just how dangerous is the curse of the compass?

Sure, it plays to be able to see the future and the past, to throw objects with my mind and to reach places that can't be reached. Literally. But some days are just better spent in bed.

**Prologue**

The bell rang just as I finished tying my shoes. I pulled on a jumper and walked down the stairs, flicking on the light as I re-entered the living room. The place always feels a little eerie after dark. I could see the outline of somebody through the window, half hidden by the door. I opened the door and a beautiful woman stumbled in, gasping and wide-eyed. 'Please – I need your help! There's something trying to kill me!'

My precognition screamed. I took one look at what had set it off, grabbed the women, and yanked her back, pulling her with me into the middle of the living room. An instant later, the window exploded in a shower of glass as something came flying through, landing with a slam on the spot the women and I had been standing in just a second ago. Without pause the demon pulled itself to its feet and lunged straight at us.

Some days are just better spent in bed.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Declaimer: I do not own Tomb Raider or the characters in the game. Only those Characters that are not in the game is my made up characters.**_

This story takes place after AOD.

I am not English, it's not my main Language and I apologize for any bad spelling...

Have fun reading the story and I love to here what you think of it so far...

* * *

The old factory was the kind of place you only find in the very worst parts of big cities. Its bricks had once been red, but years of pollution had darkened them to a brownish-gray. The outer wall was topped with ragged coils of razor wire. The wire was rusted and full of holes which hadn't been repaired in years, as if the owners had decided that they couldn't keep the burglars out but might at least be able to give tetanus on the way in.

The rest of the dead-end street was dark, empty-looking buildings and shops hiding behind steel security gratings. The gratings were covered in graffiti and it was hard to tell whether the business locked behind them were still open or whether they'd been abandoned too. The only shop that looked in good shape carried the sign of a pawnbroker. Behind all the shops and factories was the sort of council estate where the Lux Veritatis trained for the Shadow war.

It was only eleven o'clock and the rest of New York was filled with the sound of the city, but on the street nothing moved. The road was empty except for parked cars. Half of them were missing wheels, windows or both, and none would have looked out of place in a junkyard – except for the minivan parked at the top of the street. Its polished black paint melted into the shadows, with the orange glow from the street light picking out the silver hub-caps. I rolled my eyes when I saw it. My senses told me there was no immediate danger but I stayed in the shadows of the alley and scanned the street for another minute before walking out towards the van.

Most of the street lights were broken and the ones still working were patchy. I walked the street's length cloaked in darkness, with only the occasional circle of orange piercing the gloom. As I reached the van, one of the front windows slid down and the street was quiet enough that I could hear the purr of the motor. I stopped by the door and looked at the women sitting inside. 'Could you possibly have made it any more obvious?'

My name is Kurtis Trent. I'm a Lux Veritatis warrior. In the Lux Veritatis terms I'm a knight, which means I'm the next leader of the order, I'm also known as the Demon Hunter, which was because of the demons I hunted down. The women in the passenger seat I was talking to was going to help me track down the next demon, a tomb raider named Lara Croft, and she gave me a patient nod. 'Kurtis.'

'Good to see you.' I looked the van up and down.

'Seriously, a Mercedes? Did you get it waxed, too?'

'If you're concerned about stealth,' Lara said, 'perhaps we shouldn't be talking in the open?'

Lara is a woman in her thirties, long and beautifully built, with long dark hair bound in a French braid. She always seems to be wearing the same cloths, but with a sort of steadiness that suggests she might be more than meets the eye. I'd met her in the winter, in the Louvre where I had stolen the painting from her. Things didn't exactly go as I had planned, but Lara held up a good fight in the end, and when she asked for my help tonight, I'd agreed. I stepped back and watched as the passengers piled out of the van. Lara was first and following her was a tall, well built man with black skin who gave me a nod. His name was Zip, a hacker. I didn't recognise the next two but I hadn't expected to; they looked like people only Lara Croft would know and trust.

'Still planning to take the lead?' Lara asked me quietly as her team went through their preparations, checking headsets and guns.

'That's what I'm here for.'

'It's also what _they're _here for,' Lara pointed out. 'It's their line of work.'

I almost smiled. When Lara had called me yesterday and given me the briefing, she'd assumed I'd be staying at the tail-end of the formation, maybe all the way back in the van. She was offering me another chance to back out. But there was another message in there too which wasn't funny; she would be disappointed if I backed out and left her. So swallowed hard and looked her in the eyes. 'I'm not going to be much use from hundred yards back,' I said. 'I'll give you all the warning you need, but I'm coming with.'

Lara held up a hand in surrender. 'All right. You'll be on point with Anton. We'll move on your signal.'

The man Lara had nodded towards was the one who'd been in the driver's seat, now standing a little apart from the others. He was tall, with short sandy hair and an athlete's build, strong and fast. He was wearing black body armour with a hi-tech look, along with dark combat fatigues, black gloves and boots and a webbing belt that held a handgun, a machine pistol, a knife and half a dozen metal cylinders that looked suspiciously like grenades. A second pistol rested in an ankle holster and he carried a weapon in a sling that looked like a cross between a submachine-gun and an assault rifle. He watched me with calm green eyes as I walked up. 'Anton?' I asked.

Anton nodded and spoke in a deep voice. 'What's the layout?'

'I'll tell you once we get inside.'

'Going with Lara?'

'With you'

Anton raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down. I was wearing combat trousers, black boots, a belt with my trusty weapon hooked on it and I had my shoulder holster that held my Boren X. If Anton looked like something out of a military thriller, I looked like an amateur. 'I'm flattered,' Anton said, 'but you're not geared up for something like this.'

'I am geared up for this' I said, today wasn't one of my best days. After what that Boaz creature did to me, my powers didn't work so well anymore, which means if I fight for more the an hour with my powers, I'm weakened and then I'm dead. Lara knew about it and maybe that's why she teamed me up with someone like this Anton guy. To make sure I'm safe while she checks out the rest of the factory by herself.

'What are you gonna do with one gun and that thing?' Anton asked.

I unhooked my trusty weapon and held it up 'You speak of this?' I smirked.

'Yes, what are you going to with that toy when the demon tries to kill you?' Anton asked as he raised an eyebrow, an in the corner of my eye I saw Lara shaking her head at us. I looked at Anton and made my disc fly in the air and its blades shoot out. Anton's mouth drop in amazement and I only smirked more until I heard a soft and familiar voice behind me.

'You love playing with that thing!' I turned around and looked at the person that spook. It was Liz, my old time friend but what was she doing here.

'Liz Thieles what are you doing here?' I asked and Lara spook from far.

'She's here to make sure you don't mess up like last time.' I looked at Lara and saw her wink at me before she turned around and walked off. I sighed and me, Anton and Liz walked off into the old abandon factory.


	3. Chapter 2

**_Declaimer: I do not own Tomb Raider or the characters in the game. Only those Characters that are not in the game are my made up characters._**

This story takes place after AOD.

I am not English, it's not my main Language and I apologize for any bad spelling...

Have fun reading the story and I love to hear what you think of it so far...

* * *

The inside of the factory was pitch-black. The power had been turned off a long time ago and the lights that hadn't been smashed or lost their bulbs were dark. Corridors were cluttered with old machinery and piece of junk that had been piled up and left to decay, forcing us to pick a winding path through the obstacles and making it difficult to get a clear line of sight. The air smelt of dust and rusted metal.

The demon we were hunting was called a Lakhey: a shapeshifter that can take the form of either a human or a wolf-like-dog. They've got supernatural speed and strength, and they're difficult to detect with normal or with powers like mine. Or so the stories say; I've never met one, but all the sources agreed that the demons killed with claws and teeth, making these sort of dark, cramped quarters the absolute worst place to fight one. There were too many possible hiding places, too many ways the demon could lie in wait to attack from behind.

Of course, that was the reason Lara had brought me along.

To my eyes, the factory existed on two levels. There was the present, a world of darkness and shadows, broken only by the torches in my hand and on Anton's rifle, looming obstacles blocking our way and the treat of danger around every corner, but overlaid upon that was a second world, a branching web of lines of glowing white light, the web branching over and over again through four dimensions, multiplying into thousands of thinning wisps, everyone a possible future. The futures of the corridor and the objects within it were fixed and solid, while my and Anton's futures were a constantly shifting web, flicking and twisting with every moment.

Looking through the future, I saw my possible actions and their consequences. I saw myself stepping on the loose piece of scrap metal in front of me, saw myself tripping and falling, and corrected my movement avoid it. As I did, the future in which I fell thinned to nothingness, never to exist, and the futures of me stepping around it brightened in its place. By seeing the future, I decided; as I decided, the future changed and new futures replaced those never to happen. To anyone watching it looks like pure fluke: every step in the right place, every hazard avoided without seeing to notice, but the obstacles were just a detail. Most of my attention was on the near and middle future, watching for the flurry of movement and weapons fire that would signal an attack. As long as I was paying attention this time, nothing in this factory could surprise us: long before anything got into position for an ambush, I could see it and give warning.

This was why Lara had wanted me along but I have this feeling there's something else here she wants because why else would she be here. Back to the point, for me being here could bring the chances of things going seriously wrong down to almost zero. Knowledge can't win a battle, but its one hell of a force multiplier.

Something caught my attention as we passed through a doorway and I signaled for Anton to stop, he looked at me, wondering why I had stopped and Amy only shook her head at me and moved to an object near her. I ignored this and I crouched and brushed a hand across the dusty floor, feeling the chill of the concrete.

"What is it?" Amy said at last, she came and stood next to Anton.

"Someone forced this door," I said, keeping my voice quiet. "Not long ago either."

"Could have been the Lakhey."

I held up a broken link of chain. The outside was rusted but the edge where it had been broken glinted in Anton's torch. "Not unless our Lakhey uses bolt cutters."


End file.
